In a wonderfully written book that "will delight both the armchair traveler and the intellectual tourist" (Chicago Tribune), former yacht designer Alan Gurney tells of the first Herculean expeditions to Antarctica, from astronomer Edmond Halley's 1699 voyage in the Paramore to the sealer John Balleny's 1839 excursion in the Eliza Scott, all in search of land, glory, fur, science, and profit. Life was harsh: crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing, and scurvy was a constant threat. With unreliable charts, these intrepid explorers sailed in the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence, that sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antarctic seas.